The semi-intellectual wanderings of a self-educating generalist

Category Archives: History

I got to the point of pulling back the history of Thailand through the 16th century, and decided I had enough for the time being, so I went back to early prehistory.
This time, I’ve managed to pull the history of Egypt the rest of the way through antiquity and late prehistory. This gives me a better hold on other prehistory and antiquity.

So, Donald Trump is now officially the 45th President of the United States. So far, he’s not doing too badly. Some of his Cabinet nominees have already been approved by Congress, and he seems to be appointing sober, responsible people. Some of his opponents have been showing what public-spirited, high-minded statesmen they are (not) by sponsoring riots, breaking windows, and setting fire to limos in Washington DC, and promising more of the same for the next four years.

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For late classical times, I have done some connecting of religion, government, and economics. I am developing some background for the early 19th century. I’ve taken the history of Turkey back into the time of the Roman Empire, and have begun to work Congo back through the 16th century. Although the late medieval and 16th century history of Congo is not particularly prominent, this is carrying Eastern Africa along with it, and Eastern Africa is important. I have biography connected back to the 1st century CE, and for the next little while, will be connecting social foundations to 20-year periods of early modern history.

I have been working on extending the background of the early 19th century through modern history; the history of Persia through the era of the Parthian empire back to the Seleucids and Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Achamaenid Persian empire; and the history of Turkey back through Byzantine times. I’ve also been extending biography to centuries of late classical, early medieval, and late medieval history.
In the process, I’ve been adding the notes I had previously made on early Egyptian Islamic history to the appropriate centuries of the early medieval period, and I like what I am seeing. This is how it is supposed to work. As each nation gets added in, I can begin to see the pattern of expansion, decline, and succession of peoples.

In my work on the SKB, I have a survey of the late 2nd millennium BC which now has a better outline of the religions of the period. I’ve been connecting the centuries of this period to other history. I now have a more complete skeleton for studies of the historiography of the period, and I am connecting the early mid 19th century.

I’ve worked Germany back to about the 12th century BC. This presents something of a problem, because evidence indicates that Germanic tribes were expanding their territory southward during pre-Roman times, and I have little information about the other peoples who may have inhabited the area. I presume these were Celtic peoples, but I don’t know. This will require more details of German archaeology. One of the problems with being a generalist is that there isn’t time to go into all the fascinating details. Next on the list is Iran, and in company with it, the Middle East in general. So far, I have this back to the time of the Parthian empire.

I’ve been connecting areas of anthropology to particular centuries, and in the current pass, I’ve connected demography as far back as the late 2nd millennium BC. Next on the list is connecting biography. I now have a few prominent biographical figures for each 20-year period of modern history listed, and I am working back into centuries of classical and medieval history.

I have finished a review of the early 1st millennium BC which as usual add much knowledge to that period. However, various nations and peoples got slightly better connected to each other, there was some slight extension of social change and particular religions.

For classical and medieval history, I completed extension to nations as far as Israel and have begun connecting it to more cities. This will eventually give more depth and detail to it. Modern history is also being extended to more cities. The 20th century is being connected back to centuries of classical and medieval history in order to give more background to it.

Peoples of the world are also being connected to cities: This will be needed before other areas can use them. Connections to communities in general are being connected to areas of classical and medieval history.

Institutions have finished the connection to nations for now, and I am starting to work on connections to cities. For a sample, South central China has a connection to Institutions.

Culture is also being connected back to centuries of classical and medieval history.

I’ve done a review of the early 2nd millennium BC. There isn’t a whole lot of evident progress: Mostly, I have been pushing interconnections of the nations and peoples already included. I have some slight broadening of the nations connected to particular institutions. In the Individual centuries, I have been able to connect classical and medieval history far enough that I can do work connecting nations and peoples to it. For peoples of the world, I can continue a program of adding cities, and for institutions, I am adding more nations.

I have gone through a review of most of the early 2nd millennium BC. During this 500 year period, Middle Eastern peoples were leaders in cultural development, although there was significant development in India and China as well. I do not yet have solid accounts for other peoples.

I have begun a review of connections to Asiatic peoples with Northern European peoples. I have also begun a review of connection of other peoples to China with reviewing Asiatic peoples in general. Western Civilization has reviews of connections with Middle Eastern and South Asian peoples. American Indian peoples have reviews of connections with Latin peoples.

I am still working through antiquity, but taking a somewhat different direction, Instead of working back through modern history, I have begun extending the connections of nations and peoples to other nations. There are a few nations, notably the United States and China, that are pretty much fully connected to nations as far down the list as Israel. The benefit of this approach is that I can start to see patterns and trends of geographic proximity.

The particular centuries of Antiquity back through the early 3rd millennium are now connected to modern history. Modern history itself isn’t as well developed as I want it to be, but that is a different story.

For Western Civilization, I have been reviewing, rewriting, and expanding a review of the connections of Middle Eastern peoples. I will be mentioning others as I get to them.

Or rather, studying modern history by way of prehistory. What I’ve been trying to do is examine history by looking at which peoples have well-examined remains from prehistoric times. However, when I look at specific nations, I don’t have much information about their prehistory. I need to work back to this by looking at their modern history, first. Which means that I am doing more for the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th century than for anything ancient. It’s likely to be that way for a while, too.

In the meantime, I am becoming more familiar with the history of China and Japan; India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; Iran, Egypt, and Turkey; Thailand and Vietnam, with colonial Brazil and Mexico (neither of which have much attention given to them). I haven’t quite worked though to classical and medieval history, but I’m getting there.

One of my goals in this new version of the blog is to put up something interesting and meaningful every day, even if it’s short. This is, as many have discovered, harder than it sounds.

I have alluded to the huge disconnect between the account of human origins given in the Bible and the reconstructions of modern archaeologists and anthropologists. Rather than take one side or the other, I find myself trying to reconcile these views. This is made somewhat easier by the assumption on the one hand that there are huge gaps in the Biblical record, and on the other that there are a great many unknowns and things not yet discovered by archaeology. I confess my ignorance.

There is a great deal of information given in the Book of Moses which supplements the Biblical account of events before the Flood, some of which addresses long-standing questions and controversies among Christians, and some of which hints at possible reconciliations with secular science. It is not to discuss these in detail, although I may return to the topic in some future post or other.